


Heart Rush

by vondrostes



Category: Harry Styles - Musician, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, M/M, Set after LA Night 2, Unrequited Love, both hitch and clarry are unrequited i'm sorry i love pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 09:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15337266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vondrostes/pseuds/vondrostes
Summary: Loving the wrong people was all Harry knew. Straight boys, gay girls, married men, people who wanted to keep him at arms’ length, people who wanted to use him, people who couldn’t love him back in the right way, people who didn’t love him at all. Mitch was only the very latest in a series of terrible decisions orchestrated by Harry’s heart.





	Heart Rush

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about the way Harry looked at Mitch and Sarah during Girl Crush (I'm not sure how I'm still alive after experiencing that live, tbh) and this was born with the encouragement of one of my Twitter mutuals. I legitimately typed this up in like five seconds just to get it out. Be warned it really is just 1200 words of Harry being sad. 
> 
> If you are a reader of Call Answered, fret not! I just finished up a new chapter and once the next one is done (fingers crossed for tomorrow), there will be another update. I had some financial troubles that necessitated me writing something I could easily complete in a couple weeks but I'm back to the old grind.
> 
> If you want to see more stuff from me or wanna be friends, check me out on Twitter: @vondrostes & @TerranAlleen

Harry should have known from the second he met Mitch that he was doomed.

He’d learned a long time ago that he fell too hard and fell too easy. He was won over by a smile, a laugh, a twinkle in someone’s eyes, but god help him if he fell for all the wrong people. By twenty-two, he should’ve known better. By twenty-four, he still hadn’t learned.

And that’s all Harry could think about while he stood on the B-stage at the Forum on the last night of tour, with Mitch to his right, Sarah to his left, while he sang his heart out amongst thousands who had no idea just what it meant to him.

Tomorrow, this would all be over.

The night went by faster than Harry wanted even with his efforts to keep the show going far beyond his own physical capacity. His vocal cords would pay for it in the morning. His legs, his lungs; already aching as they took their final bows.

Harry wanted to cry. But he wouldn’t.

Adam was the first to leave. Harry hugged him goodbye, told him to give his love to the kids, and saw him out. Sarah and Mitch were the next to go.

Harry hugged Sarah first, telling her how proud he was, how much he’d miss her. They agreed to meet up soon since Harry was going to be in LA for a little while, at least.

Then he let go and turned to Mitch, feeling just as breathless as he’d been the moment he stepped off the stage. “Hi,” he said shakily.

A hint of a smile danced on Mitch’s lips. “You’re supposed to say ‘bye’,” he corrected.

“Don’t want to,” Harry admitted, the words slipping out in spite of himself.

Mitch sighed fondly, letting the air escape through his nose. “We’ll see you in a bit,” he said, pulling Harry in for a hug. _We_. Always we.

Harry squeezed him back tight enough that Mitch was probably in danger of suffocating and held on far longer than he should have, especially with Sarah right there. He buried his face in Mitch’s neck and he found himself wishing one or both of them still had long hair just to hide the way his eyes were scrunched up tight so they wouldn’t leak tears of betrayal all over Mitch’s jacket.

He somehow managed to get through it and extricated himself without breaking character, giving both of them a friendly smile and a wave as they exited the room arm in arm.

Harry watched them go and didn’t move even after the door had swung shut behind them. His head felt like it was filled with a swarm of bees, all buzzing loudly with possibility. With might-have-beens. Might-have-bees. The thought would have made him laugh if he didn’t feel like the slightest change in expression would send him spiraling into tears.

What if he’d told Mitch how he felt? What if he’d kissed Mitch on stage right there in front of all of those people? What if he hadn’t pretended not to see the looks of understanding and sympathy Sarah always gave him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention?

It was so easy to second-guess it all now that Mitch was gone, but Harry knew that given the option to do it all over again, to change things—he wouldn’t do a damn thing differently.

Harry didn’t trust himself. He didn’t trust himself. He had plenty reason not to.

Finally he turned, picking at his oversized t-shirt and wondering if he could still smell the combination of Mitch’s sweat and cologne sticking to the fabric. He contemplated lifting the collar to his nose to sniff even though he knew he wasn’t alone, keeping his expression painfully neutral as he walked back toward the couches.

The moment he saw Clare staring at him sadly from the other side of the green room, Harry’s carefully constructed façade shattered into a million pieces. He ran to her, leaving splintered fragments of himself scattered across the floor.

She caught him in her arms, swaying with him gently as he clung to her. Harry wished he was smaller, like a child, so she could wrap him up in her warmth entirely, so she could protect him. He wished he could love her, the way he loved Mitch.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly, pulling back enough that she could look him in the eyes, but keeping a hand steady in the centre of his back, grounding him—or trying to.

Harry shook his head, feeling the tears coming spilling out in waves. “I already miss him,” he confessed. “He just walked out that door less than a minute ago and I already feel—” Heartbroken seemed to big a word to spend on another misguided crush, but it was the only word that fit.

Clare tangled a hand in Harry’s curls, tugging lightly, just enough to send a soothing buzz shooting down his spine, calming him ever so slightly. “You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to,” she said.

Harry wondered if that meant she didn’t want to hear about Mitch anymore, if that was her way of trying to clue him in that it made her just as sad to hear Harry talk about Mitch as Harry felt about Mitch and Sarah. But no, Clare was too nice, too…perfect. She just wanted Harry to be happy. In whatever way he could be.

“I don’t want to be like this,” he told her. “I don’t want to keep falling in love with people who can’t love me back.” Maybe it was cruel to say these things to her, knowing how she felt. Maybe it was heartless to come to her for comfort, to take and take and take, knowing he couldn’t give her what she wanted in return. “I thought I’d be okay,” Harry continued. “I was okay before, but now I just…I feel like I love him too much.”

It was a consequence of living their lives tangled up in each other for so long that Harry had forgotten how to be his own person.

“There’s no such thing as loving too much, baby,” Clare told him. She stroked a gentle hand over his cheeks. “But sometimes we don’t always love the right people.”

Loving the wrong people was all Harry knew. Straight boys, gay girls, married men, people who wanted to keep him at arms’ length, people who wanted to use him, people who couldn’t love him back in the right way, people who didn’t love him at all. Mitch was only the very latest in a series of terrible decisions orchestrated by Harry’s heart.

“I want him so bad sometimes,” he admitted, burying the words in a whisper against Clare’s shoulder.

She wound her arms around him a little tighter. “I know, baby. I know.”

“Will you stay with me?” he asked in a small voice.

“As long as you need me.”

Harry hated himself for even thinking it, but maybe he could settle, maybe he could force this to be enough. Anything to fill this gaping hole in his heart. “I love you,” he told her, and he meant it, but they both knew it wasn’t the love either of them needed it to be.

His lips brushed feather-soft across her cheek, and when he kissed her, they both tasted like tears.


End file.
